The Lord is in This Place

Introduction

What do we do when our life feels godless? Spiritual deserts where no drop of the nourishing presence of God is perceptible are places where many Christians feel stuck for long periods of time. Sometimes it is because of a sin that we have fallen into, that we feel has cut us off from the privileged of being in God’s presence, or it may be during a particularly difficult season of life where God’s grace seems to be late to the event. What are we to do when the presence, the love, and the blessings of God seem far away?

In our text, Jacob is on the run. In a better situation, Isaac would have sent a faithful servant like Abraham did to find a well-suited wife for the next covenant Patriarch. But Jacob is also on the run from his brother because he tricked him out of his father’s blessing. While both Isaac and Esau were in the wrong, the way that Rebekah and Jacob went about trying to get the blessing for Jacob was deceitful and not in accord with God’s perfect character. Inciting the wrath of his brother, Jacob is literally fleeing for his life in part because of his own sin. However, if there is one thing we have learned from the book of Genesis, it’s that God remains faithful even when human beings are faithless. God keeps his promises because his promises ultimately culminate in the person of Jesus Christ, the true offspring of Abraham. God’s promises to Jacob, his chosen covenant head, are as sure as his own plans to glorify Jesus Christ.

So as Jacob slept on his way to the land of his ancestors, God gives him a vision that makes God’s faithfulness clear. Despite Jacob’s failings, failings that will cause a lot of pain and hardship for him and others, God will remains faithful to the covenant of love he made to his grandfather.

Jacob’s Pilgrimage: In the Footsteps of his Fathers

Our text picks up after the messy family situation that Jacob is leaving behind. Although it is right for him to go looking for a spouse in Haran, it is somewhat backwards that he, the blessed child of Isaac and the one who inherits the birthright, is forced to leave while Esau, the rejected child and a spiritual successor of Cain the brother murderer, stays in the promised land. The theme of exile is emphasized as he is forced to walk away from the land that God has promised him. He got the blessing of his father by trickery, and the birthright from his brother through deceit, and now he is travelling through the land he and his descendants are supposed to inherit on his way to exile.

And yet, such a pilgrimage is emblematic of the story of the patriarchs of God’s people. Abraham himself lived a life of exile in a land he knew would one day be his. Israel would spend 400 years in exile in Egypt and in the future 70 years in Babylon because of their sin. It is Jacob’s sin that is, at least in part, the reason he is exiled, to save himself from a brother jealous because of his trickery. But it is not a meaningless exile. God has not abandoned his covenant and the promises of the covenant were not lost in the less-than-ideal situation that Jacob finds himself in. As he lies down to rest one night on his way to Northern Syria, he has a remarkable dream.

The Dream

Jacob sees a ladder or staircase leading from the earth where Jacob is to heaven where God is. On this staircase there is a constant line of angels walking up and down this staircase. What does this all mean?

The Covenant Restated

Before we think about the purpose of the angels, the most important part of this text should be considered. Unfortunately, the imagery of a staircase often takes away from the words that God speaks to Jacob here. As we read them, they shouldn’t seem too foreign to us. God introduces himself as YHWH, his covenant name. Along with this title is the history of the covenant, he is the God of Abraham and Isaac. He mentions his father and grandfather to call to mind the history of covenantal love and loyalty with his family. With both of these men, God appeared and announced himself as their covenant Lord. To both he gave promises and responsibilities to follow him and show the world his character by representing him as the human image-bearer.

God then moves on to the familiar promise of land. Jacob is not even close to his destination, he is a little north of where Jerusalem will one day be, and still in the land of Canaan that falls under the promise that God made to Abraham. So God tells Jacob that the land he is sleeping on in that very moment is going to be his and belong to his offspring through him. This is the first part of the promise, and the second soon follows. His offspring will be like the dust off the earth. God moves to a metaphor other than the metaphor of stars, but a very similar image. The idea is that God would multiply his descendants to be uncountable as a Kingdom under God’s rule and blessing. Then the third familiar part of the Abrahamic promise is given as well, the promise that through him all the nations of the earth will be blessed. However, there is something slightly different about how God says that to Jacob. Before now it was not clear how the nations of the earth would be blessed. The assumption was that by inhabiting the promised land, the rest of the world would look at them and be blessed. In Exodus 19 it is made clear that this blessing is that they would be a nation of priests, showing the world how to know God, which is the greatest blessing.

How is this blessing carried out? By spreading to the east and the west, the north and the south. This gives us the hint that the people of God will not permanently stay in the promised land, and least not this promised land, but will go out and bring the blessings of God to all nations through missions. This promise was not fully revealed until the New Testament and the Great Commission to bring the Gospel of the Kingdom of God to the whole world. It also hints that the land of Israel was never the full fulfilment of the promise God made to Abraham, in blessing all the nations God was going to bring the nations into the same covenant and conquer the entire world, not through bloodshed, but through redemption.

Verse 15 then reads:

Genesis 28:15 ESV

Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land. For I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”

God gives Jacob confidence based, once again, on his own faithfulness. He has a promise and a plan, and God’s faithfulness to his people are as sure as his faithfulness to this own plans, since they are connected. But there is also great importance to God’s statement, “I am with you and will keep you wherever you go.” Alone on his way to a strange land, God gives Jacob this new confidence that God is honouring his promise back when him mother was pregnant with him. It also lets Jacob know that God recognizes the blessing he has, and that even though he is away from the land promised to him, his God will not leave him.

Angels: Symbolizing Ministry to the People of God

But what about the angels? God has appeared both to Abraham and Isaac to declare the covenant promises to them, just like he is appearing to Jacob here, but this strange detail of the angels walking up and down a staircase to heaven is a new, and somewhat odd detail. Why is this here?

The Staircase

Lets begin with the staircase. These angels are not just there, they are walking up and down what could be pictured as a spiral staircase like those common on ziggerats of the time. Those tall, cone-shaped towers that used for astrology and other practices common in pagan cultic practices. If we think back on the story we’ve been following in the book of Genesis, there is only one other time that an attempt was made to creat a staircase to heaven: the Tower of Babel. That tower was almost certainly a ziggerat of some kind, and certainly was meant to have a staircase to the top because the whole point was to build a tower that would enable them to reach heaven by the works of their own hands and challenge God on his heavenly throne. In that case, God came down, illustrating how far they were from their goal. He confused their language and showed them how weak their reliance on themselves was. They were the spiritual children of Cain, relying on their own works and accomplishments to give themselves glory, rather than living for the glory of God. As a result, not only were they unable to reach God building a tower, putting a man on the moon hasn’t even achieved that, but God also actively foiled their plans to reach him. God actively works against those who try to make their way to God on their own terms.

But in Jacobs dream, he has seen the impossible: a staircase leading from earth all the way to the foot of God’s throne. The very thing that those at the tower of Babel were trying to construct, God has constructed for his covenant son. God rejected the tower of Babel, just like he rejected Esau. He will also reject strange fire, worship not in accord with what he commanded when Israel leaves Egypt. He will reject Uzzah, who put out his hand to stabilize the Ark of the Presence of God and died. He will reject the offerings of the Pharisees, who thought that through their good works and fasting they were reach the blessings of God. What we see clearly throughout Scripture is that God is very particular about how we approach him, whether it is on his terms or God’s. The builders of Babel were trying to get to God their own way for their own purposes and glory. But in our text, God has approached Jacob in the context of his own promises for his own glory. The door to heaven is open to his promised people, his covenant children. But it is closed to those who would come any other way.

A common criticism of Christianity is that it is too exclusive. I remember talking to a Muslim woman once who said that all of us who believe in God need to team up and work together because we all know God in our own way. But the problem is that the way the rest of the world is trying to reach God is like the builders of the Tower of Babel. Muslims are building a tower, Roman Catholics are building a tower, everyone is building a tower to get to God on their own terms. The difference is that in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, God came down to us. He initiated contact and forged a way for us know him. He built the only reliable staircase to heaven, and that way is through faith in the person and work of Jesus. It is a way that is based on God’s covenant, his promises, his Word, and his power. You cannot come to God however you want, you must come the way he has provided.

The Ministers to God’s people

So what about the angels? What are their place in this vision? We talked about angels a while ago, and we saw that angels play a few different roles. They serve in a military office, they are sometimes the tools of God’s judgement, but when they interact with God’s people they fill the role of servants and ministers. Hebrews 1:14 says that angels are ministering spirits sent to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation.

Interestingly, the last time angels were mentioned was Abraham assuring his servant that angels would go before him on his way to find a wife for Isaac. Jacob is on a similar mission, and this may give us a clue as to what the angels represent here. In the case of Abraham’s servant, angelic help was the means of providence that put him at the right place and the right time to find the girl God has prepared for Isaac.

The presence of angels on the stairway to heaven represent God sending his angelic hosts to providentially prepare the way of Jacob and to go with him where ever he goes. They will be the means of providence that will lead Jacob to Rachel and Leah, that will grant him success while working for his dishonest relative Laban, and that will see him safely back in the promised land with peace made with his murderous brother Esau. It’s not that Jacob is supposed to put his faith in angels, but in God who providentially provides the services of the heavenly host to help and bless his covenant people.

God Gives the Blessing

The story ends with Jacob setting up a rock as a memorial of God’s promises to him, similar to the alter Abraham made at Mamre, or the well of Beersheva. It is a place to remember the faithfulness of God and the promises he has made, which are as sure as his own power and glory. However, it’s hard to ignore Jacob’s emphasis on the location. He emphasizes that God is in the place he chose to sleep and he did not know it, and he calls the place the house of God, or Bethel. However, I think Jacob is missing the broader context that the book of Genesis is trying to give us. He puts all the emphasis on the place, as if he just happened to sleep in some kind of cosmic portal by chance. As we read the book, we recognize that God is telling Jacob the same thing he told Abraham and Isaac before him, and that he has been chosen based on God’s sovereign will that was communicated to Rebekah before his birth.

Let’s rewind a bit to the previous chapter and ask a question: what would have happened if Isaac had blessed Esau? Did Jacob need to trick his father in order to make God’s plan come to pass? The answer is no. And here why. Who blessed Abraham and gave him the covenant promises? God did through divine revelation. Who chose Isaac and gave him the promise over Ishmael and the sons of Keturah? God did, despite Abraham’s plans. The fact is that Isaac did not have the authority to give this blessing to Esau, and if he had gone through the ritual and given him the blessing, it wouldn’t have mattered. God is the one who gives the blessings of the covenant. Not patriarch or priest or pope or preacher. No one on earth has the authority to enforce an opinion that adds to or contradicts God’s will. And God is under no obligation to honour our own promises or blessings if they contradict him.

What God does in our text is he gives the blessing that Jacob really needed. The blessing that was accidentally given to Jacob by Isaac is not the real covenant blessing, it’s a fake. Isaac thinks, based on the common cultural practices of his day, that it’s his role as the Patriarch of the clan to appoint the heir. But in truth, it’s not. God is the one that says who is and who is not in the covenant he has made, and who gets the promises that he has graciously offered to his elect. Jacob is getting what he would have recieved anyway, because the promises of God are in God’s hands, and from before he was born God loved him, chose him, and now communicates with him and will work in him making him more into the image of the God who chose him.

Jacob has a long and painful road ahead of him in life. He is a deceitful man that God is going to work in to the point of sending an angel to wrestle with him. But God will never leave him because of his gracious promises. The Lord is with him, and has given him the seed of faith which will grow as the years go on. He will be forced to trust God more in difficult situations, and even though in some ways Jacob gets what he deserves, God’s favour never leaves him.

The covenant Jacob has is a covenant of enduring love. Love that is initiated by God and exists for his own glory. Seeing the glory of God as the motivation behind everything God does is comforting, because it means that his love is not dependent on us. He disciplines those he loves, but he also shows tender affection to them. Jacob experiences both, never earning a place in God’s love, but never rejected from it. Slowly he learns to trust God more and he lives long enough to see God’s hand work mightily in his descendants.

The main theme of this text is theme of the presence of God. God promises to go with Jacob because of the covenant love he has for him. He will look after and protect him wherever he may go, because he is the chosen recipient of his unearned love. God will use Jacob to bring the Saviour of this world into the world, and his coming will be the ultimate manifestation of that love.

Jesus chose people without any merit of their own. Peter, James, John, Andrew, Bartholomew, Thomas and the rest. Like God’s call for Abraham to “go,” Jesus called them to “come, follow me” and they did. Like Jacob, they were sometimes lacking faith, such as Peter on the sea, and they lacked spiritual insight, but they did act on the faith they had and after the resurrection they recieved the Holy Spirit. Before he ascended into heaven, Jesus commissioned them with what is the church’s covenant obligation: to go into the world and make genuine disciples by preaching the Gospel, living consistent with Gospel truth, and baptizing and teaching new believers to follow Christ in the same way.

These commands are ended with the same Words that God left Jacob with. “I am with you always.” Wherever you go, Christ is with you, empowering you to be a light of the Gospel in a dark world. Guiding you away from sin and the system of the world to the glorious image of God. This presence is the sure mark of a loving, covenant relationship with God. It is the privileged of every believer. It is our birthright, our blessing, and it is given to us by God alone, not by the schemes and promises of man.

Conclusion

And that same presence is with us this morning. The church gathering to worship in the Spirit by Faith in the Son for the glory of the Father. The collected adoration of God by his redeemed people. This is the house of God, this is Bethel. Did you know it? Or are you like Jacob, sitting in the presence of God and unaware? Mind preoccupied with other things, plans for the week, the show you’re watching, the worries of life? Will you sit in the house of God and let your mind wander to lesser things?

Our weakness often tempts us and pulls our eyes from the one thing worth living for. In a throne room there is nothing worth looking at besides the one who sits on the royal throne, and in the house of God there is none worthy of our full attention than God. How often are we privileged with the presence of God and do not know it?

The presence of God is available to us through the eternal covenant the Father made with the Son. A covenant that encompasses all the other majour covenants of the OT and the New Covenant made in his blood. How high the price to put us here, in his very presence to worship and adore him, and beyond that, to be loved by him. Do not let such a valuable moment slip away. This presence will outshine your distractions and put to rest your worries.

Let us raise a stone of remembrance in our hearts, one that I think is physically represented in the practice of the Lord’s Table, and bask in the glory of Bethel, our home now and for eternity.